Digital signage takes Lady Gaga to the Louvre

Feb. 11, 2014

Pop star Lady Gaga recently infiltrated the echelons of high art at the Louvre.

And she did it with the help of digital signage.

Artist Robert Wilson last year unveiled a video installation at the Musée du Louvre in Paris featuring Lady Gaga in the re-creation of several renowned paintings housed at the Louvre — "The Death of Marat," "The Head of St. John the Baptist on a Charger," and "Mademoiselle Caroline Riviere" — as well as one Japanese-inspired portrait in which Lady Gaga is shown bound and suspended in midair.

The video installation was powered by solid-state XD digital signage media players from BrightSign, creating a juxtaposition of modern artistic technique and classic artistic works, resulting in a provocative interpretation that blurs the lines between traditional art and modern pop culture, according to a case study on the exhibit from BrightSign. The digital signage media players drive the entire installation, powering 17 separate LCD and plasma displays installed throughout the sprawling museum.

Lady Gaga even tweeted put a photo of one of the display, in which she is shown as the painting "The Death of Marat":

I know my artiness + musical goals may seem lofty, but there is a POP STAR IN THE LOUVRE, right next to the Mona Lisa pic.twitter.com/6XNYfEFRK1

The Louvre display was put together by longtime Wilson collaborators Dissident Industries, which handled the technical implementation, including development, production, post-production and installation at the museum.

"The behind-the-scenes hardware that powers our video exhibits needs to be rock-solid," Dissident Industries co-founder Matthew Shattuck said in the case study.